Interview with Kristina Keane (10/23/2008)

If you bring forth that which is within you, that which you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth that which is within you, that which is within you will destroy you.
(The Gospel of Thomas)

The above quote beautifully illustrates Kristina’s intense desire and commitment to her spiritual and artistic philosophy and perspective; to live and embody spirituality/art/passion is her soul’s path. Life embodied is her spirituality.

Kristina Keane has always known that she was somehow different. Her life story is filled with inexplicable events, intensity, and sometimes scary moments. Stories from her childhood confirm that Sophia has always walked with her. At the age of three, she was asked what she wanted to be when she grew up. She confidently answered, “A messenger!” Perplexed, the adult probed, “A messenger? What’s your message then?” With a firm knowingness, she smiled and replied, “God loves you!” Growing up in a Catholic household “God” was her frame of reference, yet now it is clear to her, that it was Sophia whispering in her ear all along. She also used to speak of an imaginary friend who lived in her closet and was waiting for the right time to come out and play. Many of her childhood photographs reveal orbs of light near or around her body. In one particular picture the light behind her takes on the shape of a women, with her hand on Kristina’s head.

When she was three, Kristina started classical dance training in ballet, tap, and jazz. By age seven, she was competing in regional and national competitions. These early imprints shaped the direction of her life. She went on to examine the connection of the mind and body, to health and well-being. Because of her training and her natural abilities, she was eventually able to further develop a heightened sense of body awareness and control. This played prominently in her ability to feel energy, hold and control the channeling process. In fact, it was through the body that Kristina first became aware that she was a channel.

Kristina recalls the first time she saw a motivational speaker addressing a large crowd: she knew immediately that this was something she herself was destined to be. Looking back, she claims that the concept of being a channel at that time would have sent her running to her local priest.

In 1994, Kristina was indirectly hit by lightening, while she was sipping water from a drinking fountain. The building she was in was hit by lightening, and the current ran through everything, including the metal she was touching, blowing her off her feet, and almost clear across the room leaving her with synged arm hairs. Kristina believes this jolt, firmly amakened a dormant part of her mind. It wasn’t until after college that the pieces began to fall into place. At the first spiritual gathering she ever attended, a well known intuitive from India singled Kristina out as a gifted and powerful intuitive. She predicted that Kristina would offer great spiritual insights to the world. At the time, Kristina brushed the women’s words aside, insisting that she had a case of mistaken identity. Nonetheless, that message haunted her, both in her thoughts and dreams.

When her father unexpectedly passed away a few months later, she became obsessed with figuring out what happens to us after we die, and why many people suffer with diseases of the body and mind. Her quest led her to study alternative forms of meditation, healing, and psychic phenomenon. Within a year, she had her first communication with the other side. It began with a loving message from her late father, followed by a powerful vision of Christ who spoke directly to her, saying: “You are a messenger. You are not alone. There are thousands like you.” This experience deeply affected her. It fueled a passionate, yet desperate desire to understand what “being a messenger” meant.

It was her driven state-of-mind that facilitated the beginning of her psychic opening. She began to have many more powerful mediumistic experiences in which she could sense beings from the other-side through body sensations (clairsentience). More psychic abilities also began to unfold, and mystical experiences became a daily occurrence. Kristina struggled to understand these newfound abilities and choose not to share them, fearing the opinions of her conservative family and friends. Kristina has had a myriad of very profound and intense spiritual experiences that cannot be easily described, or are unlike any she’s discovered in her research. Much of what she learned and experienced contradicted with modern day thought, yet because of all her direct experiences, she could no longer deny that there is more to reality than what science and religion can currently prove. While she in no way means to appropriate the term “Shaman”, many of her experiences are similar to the traditional, known shamanistic path, from similarities in what occurs during initiation, to spiritual experience and knowledge. Considering her conservative background, from her upbringing as a Catholic, to her education in Business Communications (Bentley College; Bachelor of Science in Business Communications, Magna Cum Laude), this new perspective was a huge stretch, and only came about through her natural inclination to take huge leaps of faith.

About two years after her fathers crossing, during the summer of 2000, her psychic opening culminated in spontaneously channeling The Goddess Sophia. It was this event that truly changed the course of her life. She immediately packed her bags and moved from Boston to Los Angeles, determined to search out, and be around those who could help her process all her intense spiritual experiences. Yet, the moment she arrived, all of the fearful aspects of her spiritual encounters that she had previously pushed down, quickly came to the surface. Quite simply, she freaked out, which in turn facilitated a partial closing down of her channeling abilities. Yet, she was still very psychic, and she joined several structured psychic development circles. She began to slowly deal with her deep-set fear of “being a freak” or possibly “crazy”. She also started to comprehend that a lot of her daily struggles were directly related to being psychic, and not yet knowing how to control her experiences.

In order to gain full control of her abilities she made yet another dramatic move; Kristina traveled to England to the “Arthur Findlay Institute” a world-renowned school for mediums and channels. It was here that she re-established her connection with Sophia and began to fully realize, and develop her gift. She returned to the States feeling confident, connected and fully empowered once again, she was finally ready to acknowledge herself as a channel and to offer Sophia and her wisdom to the world.

Throughout her many years as a professional channel, Kristina has further developed herself to be a channel capable of full expression. She has continued to take many leaps of faith, to be able to allow Sophia to be fully embodied in any environment or setting for several hours at a time. Her extensive training and overall commitment to understanding the complexities of being a channel, has facilitated the development of a very unique, yet grounded practice.

Kristina now completely embraces the gifts of being a channel, yet she is very conscious of the multitude of complexities that come along with it. Due to the amount of time she spends in trance states, her psychic sensitivities are extremely heightened. Because of this, she has to be very careful in her interactions with the work and the world. In order to continue to be a clear channel, she must be very disciplined. Her willingness to be the vehicle for the very intense energy and personality of Sophia is a sacred gift that she gives us. Even though many people are curious about Kristina’s interpretation of Sophia and her experience of being the channel, she feels that her complex and complicated personal relationship with The Goddess gets in the way of really offering a translatable perspective. She feels very strongly about letting the Sophia material stand on its own, choosing not to color the wisdom with her own impressions, yet she is always willing to help share and bridge the universal message that Sophia is here to impart.

In the last several years Kristina has pursued a course of study at the Tamalpa Institute, a non-profit organization that provides training programs and workshops in the “Halprin Process”, a movement-based expressive arts approach that integrates movement/dance, visual arts, performance techniques and therapeutic practices. This approach supports personal, interpersonal and social transformation, teaching new models for health, psychology, art and communication for people who wish to incorporate embodied creativity through the arts into their personal lives and professional practices. This experience has been invaluable in helping Kristina understand her own relationship to, and bridge with the world the transformative powers of Sophia.

Overall, Kristina approaches channeling from a therapeutic perspective and offers an understanding of the spiritual realms that is firmly grounded in reality. Her true beauty lies in her humility; she chooses to remain down to earth, and refuses to have anyone put her on a pedestal.